


Principles

by scarecrowstories



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Existentialism, Gen, Necromancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 05:57:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20616125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarecrowstories/pseuds/scarecrowstories
Summary: Barry and Kravitz are waiting for the twins to get home and have a conversation about the nature of necromancy magic and souls.





	Principles

**Author's Note:**

> This was requested by someone anonymously on tumblr! I had a lot of fun writing it, and I hope you enjoy it!!

They'd been gone for hours. Barry was awkward at best, and disastrously anxious at worst, and this was testing his limits. After years of warding his cave to keep the likes of Kravitz away, having the man over for afternoon tea while they waited on their significant others to come home felt entirely too weird. They'd only just begun working together, the bounty on Barry's soul only recently put to rest.

"You think they'll make it back by dinner?" Kravitz asked, casually sipping his tea as he looked around the living room. This was the first time it was just the two of them hanging out, the twins out enjoying a day on the town with Lup having just gotten her body back. "Not that I'm not enjoying your company," Kravitz added quickly.

Barry shrugged. "They lose track of time when it's just the two of them, so I wouldn't count on it." He cleared his throat. "Geez, this is just, uhh…"

"Awkward?"

"A bit, yeah." He took a sip of his tea to give himself time to gather his words. "I mean, we were kinda enemies until recently, so I don't want you to think it's anything personal."

Kravitz waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, not at all, I understand. It's not like I had any idea who you were or what you'd done. Just that you were another lich who needed to be eliminated for bastardizing the natural order of things."

"Hey, that's a bit harsh, wouldn't you say?" Barry crossed his legs, gripping his ankle tightly. He knew this was just a normal conversation, but his nerves were set off by the way Kravitz had worded that. Of course he was safe. They were coworkers now - and not just that, but he liked to think they'd become friends over the last few months.

"You two are the exception," Kravitz said, leaning back with a smile. "I never thought I'd meet a necromancer who didn't make my skin crawl. Well, when I have skin, anyway."

That made Barry laugh. "Hey, I hear ya, bud, I don't think I've ever gotten along with many necromancers."

"What made you pick it? I mean, yes, I know the Story, but why necromancy in particular? Surely another school of magic could have afforded you the protection you sought." Kravitz raised an eyebrow questioningly, a smirk playing on his lips. "No offense, Barry, but you don't seem the type."

It was Barry's turn to smile. "You're right, for what it's worth. I dunno if I could explain it? We saw so many planes, and they all had different magics, and it was incredible. Some planes had, like, half a dozen forms of necromancy. Others had none, but a hundred kinds of nature magic. Every single place we saw was unique." He set his teacup down on the table and turned to face Kravitz more fully. "You stop worrying about taboos after a while."

"I suppose that makes sense," Kravitz conceded, brushing a lock of hair behind his ear. "But doesn't it feel, I dunno, gross?"

"What, necromancy?"

"Yeah, like, the magic itself. Doesn't the energy feel dirty? Or wrong? Or something?"

Barry shook his head. "No, sorry, I'm not quite sure what you mean? It's just magic, it's energy, it doesn't really behave that way, if that makes sense."

A look of concern flashed through Kravitz's eyes. "I always thought the different schools of magic felt different, on a fundamental level. Maybe I'm the odd one, here."

"No idea," Barry admitted. "But no, it doesn't feel any different than any other magic to me. And believe me, I've tried a lot. It's basically just, uhh, well, if you'll forgive the expression, it's like really late healing. But more extreme."

Kravitz blinked. He hadn't heard that one before in all his years as a Reaper. "Barry, I don't know if you realize, but that's kinda fucked up."

"But it is!" Barry insisted, his inner scientist delighted by the chance to explain the finer points of his studies. It had been so long since he had someone new to rant to about it! Lup always listened, even when she knew it all already, but he hadn't had the opportunity to present it to anyone as new information in decades! "Think of it like this: death is essentially an extreme medical condition applied to a physical form, right? It has its own symptoms: loss of soul, loss of nerve stimulation, loss of organ function, et cetera. So if you treat the symptoms, you cure the condition!"

"I can't believe you just called 'loss of soul' a symptom!" Kravitz said, frustrated but curious. "I guess I can see how some of those are reversible through necromancy specifically, but I'm not following entirely."

Barry reached for a notebook on the table and opened to a blank page, grabbing a pen and scribbling rapidly. Moments later he revealed a crude sketch of a body. "Okay, so it's like this. If you use exclusively healing magic, you're limited to this right here: the body itself. You can mend flesh, repair bone, that sort of thing. But you're not seeing the fullness of what makes that person alive in this picture, are you?"

"No," Kravitz agreed. "I still don't understand, though."

"I'm getting there," Barry insisted, drawing a few more lines until it looked like the body was emitting an aura. "See, living beings inherently give off an energy as a byproduct of those biological functions. That energy is proof that they're alive. So what happens when that energy stops?"

"You die."

"Close, but not quite. Do you die because you no longer emit that energy? Or are you no longer emitting that energy because you're dead? Does it matter if you can't tell the difference?" He pointed to the drawing of the aura. "A necromancer can utilize that life force to power their magic. Some use their own, some steal it from others. And when that life force is shoved into a corpse, you get a zombie. It has no soul, though - it's just a vessel for that vitality. So clearly that energy isn't the only necessary ingredient for life."

"Go on," Kravitz encouraged when Barry paused. "I don't have any questions yet. I'm enjoying listening!"

Barry nodded, delighted. "Okay, feel free to stop me if you need, though. I, uhh, I can get pretty carried away." He cleared his throat. "Right. So. That life force is needed to power a body, but it all means nothing if the soul isn't intact or if it's gone. That's where the grittier part comes in. How do you repair a soul? Or how do you recall a soul from another plane? What magic source is strong enough to do something so big?"

"The soul itself?" Kravitz suggested, getting the feeling that Barry was seeking his participation in the conversation.

"Exactly! But if you think of the soul as a substance similar to, like, blood, then you understand that you can't use too much of it or you die! And it takes a while for it to restore itself, so there's a long rebound for most necromancy. With one exception: liches." He pushed up his glasses and wrung his hands in his lap. "I know it probably sounds crazy, but you weren't there, Krav. Combining that soul energy with our magic energy meant near infinite amounts of both. Our magic became our souls. And our souls became magic itself."

Kravitz tried to give a reassuring smile. "You're right, it does sound crazy. But I know you were desperate and afraid, and honestly? If anybody was going to be crazy enough to become a lich and get away with it, I'm glad it was the two of you." He clapped a hand on Barry's shoulder. "I mean it. You're good people. You didn't do it because you wanted to raise an army of undead minions. And you didn't do it with horribly misguided principles of how magic works. Everything you said just now proves to me that you two gave it as much thought as its due."

"Thanks, that means a lot," Barry muttered, looking away. "For real, though, I know we did something pretty wild. If I wasn't studying the Light, I was trying to find something that would keep us safe. I was terrified. All the time. It would be too easy for something to happen that wiped us all out and that would be the end of everything. And, well, I don't regret what we did. The best way to keep us all alive was to become unkillable."

"I understand," Kravitz said. "Well, I don't, not really, but I'm trying to. It's hard for me to think of any necromancy as necessary. Habit."

Barry rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I get it, we're all just lovesick fools trying to bring back our moms or whatever to you, right?"

"Okay, to be fair, that does account for a significant portion of--"

"You're good, I'm just messing with you," Barry interrupted, standing and taking the empty teacups to the nearby counter. "Anyway, did you have any questions? I gotta admit, I really do love talking about this stuff, and if I can help clear up any misunderstandings you've got I think that could be good."

Kravitz gave it a few moments of consideration while Barry stepped into the kitchen to start another teapot. "I guess I do have some questions. Things I've often wondered, but never really had the chance to ask. I don't tend to make polite conversation with the prisoners in the Stockade." He waited until Barry walked back into the living room. "Okay, so, I guess my biggest question is this: you said that combining your magic and your soul lets you have near infinite amounts of both. And I get that, sort of. But can that magic only be used for more necromancy? Is it intrinsically tied to the forces that created it?"

Barry's eyes lit up. "Oh, boy, that's a fantastic question! No, oddly enough. You'd think that because you used necromantic energy to do the ritual that you'd only wind up with infinite necromancy energy, but you can use it for any school of magic. But, like, I don't think most liches ever would? I haven't met any others, so I can't really say."

"No, you're right that they don't," Kravitz admitted. "I've never met a lich who regularly uses any other school of magic, and so I've just always wondered."

"Lup's specialty is still evocation magic," he pointed out, sitting back down beside Kravitz. "And becoming a lich only gave her access to more energy to channel into it. I guess that's why I don't really understand what you mean by different schools of magic feeling different. Energy is just energy, it's not inherently any particular way until you shape it."

"What about clerics, then?" Kravitz asked. "Their power comes from a deity. How does that not feel holy to you?"

Barry shrugged. "Sorry, dunno what to tell you. Maybe to some people it does? Our bodies are like conduits, taking in the energy and transforming it into a spell. But the energy itself in its raw state? It doesn't belong to any school. It's like the Light of Creation. We all have a bit of that spark in us." He smiled. "Maybe it's something you can only understand if you spend decades studying the Light. We, uhh, we probably have a bit of a skewed view of things."

"Perhaps. But I think it's wonderful. I'm honored for the chance to get to know you, Barry." Kravitz reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a deck of cards. "I think that's enough serious talk for now, though. You up for a game?"

"Isn't playing games with Death himself, like, really cliché?"

"Maybe where you're from," Kravitz teased.

They shifted to the floor, seated on opposite sides of the coffee table as Kravitz shuffled the deck. Barry didn't feel as anxious anymore. It was a relief to see that Kravitz was just as polite and earnest alone as he seemed with Taako, that that wasn't just a façade. It was also a relief to know that his brother-in-law was with someone he could trust.

And besides, playing card games with Death seemed a lot less risky than the other games they'd played in recent years. He could handle poker any day.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm always open to requests! Let me know what you think of this piece! I tried to make it more dialogue-heavy than I usually do, since the whole point is their interactions. I hope that it came out okay, I'm super self-conscious about writing dialogue!!


End file.
